CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUKBALAHAP MOVEMENT

EARLY BACKGROUND

The Hukbalahap movement, known simply as the Huk (pronounced
"hook"), was the culmination of events and internal Philippine conditions that
predated World War II by centuries and was rooted in the country's pre-colonial
period. Economic, social, and political inequities existed before the arrival
of the Spanish, who further co-opted it into their own variety of mercantilism,
and were perpetuated into the twentieth century by American policy. This social
and political history divided the Filipinos into classes where the "haves" reaped
the nation's profits while the "have-nots" were left with little but their desperate
desire for change.

In 1565, Spanish explorers landed in the Philippines (christening
the islands for their monarch, King Philip II) and found a homegrown agricultural
society that was easily adapted into their own encomienda system. The
Spanish crown issued royal land-grants to colonists, who developed large plantations
on the island of Luzon, the nation's agrarian heartland. Filipino landowners
were disenfranchised and their tenant farmers were placed under the authority
of the new landlords. Former native landlords were either retained by the Spanish
to operate the haciendas for them, became sharecroppers themselves, or
sought work elsewhere.

Filipinos were quick to react to their loss of land ownership,
additional taxes placed upon them by the Spanish, and their worsening economic
condition. The first of numerous revolts against the Spanish broke-out in 1583
and was dealt with

3

in the manner of the times -- bloody retaliation. A relatively
small Spanish garrison, that did not exceed 600 troops during this period, employed
the assistance of several native ethnic groups and ruthlessly crushed the revolt.
Subsequent uprisings during the next three hundred years were handled by the
Spanish colonial government in much the same manner.

Hints of social reform did not appear in the Philippines until
the mid-19th century. A more liberal regime in Madrid allowed some wealthy Filipinos,
who rose in social stature via employment as tax collectors and low level administrators
for the colonial government, to seek education and operate small tracts of private
farmland. The Spanish also started a few small development projects on some
of the larger islands, such as Mindinao and Cebu. However, when the enlightened
government in Madrid fell, attempts for even minimal reforms were forgotten
and the near feudal, pre-reformed status quo returned.1

In 1870, Philippine opposition to Spanish rule erupted into
a series of guerrilla wars. Despite harsh repression taken against peasant farmers,
the fighting continued and by the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898,
the Katipunan Revolt (usually credited with beginning in 1896) spread from Luzon
to the islands of Panay and Cebu as Spanish troops withdrew for the defense
of Manila. In the same year, rebel leader Jose Rizal, was captured and killed
by the Spanish. During the Huk insurrection, his descendants again played a
role.2

4

When the United States annexed the Philippines after the Spanish-American
War, Filipinos were given greater responsibility for governing their own land.
Local government was assisted by limited American efforts to improve both economic
and social conditions. Philippine officials advanced in the civil service and
many of these bureaucrats joined a growing number of prosperous businessmen
to replace Spanish haciendas with their own large plantations. Collectively,
they formed a new Philippine elite and sought to retain the status quo
that had provided them the opportunity to succeed -- whether through business,
agriculture, or corruption in government.3 There existed little indeed
for honest government servants when the system rewarded corruption, nepotism,
and favoritism so handsomely.

U.S. POLICY BEFORE WORLD WAR II

American policy toward the Philippines was first tested during
the bloody 1899-1902 Philippine Insurrection. Although the nearly three year
long war suppressed overt Philippine nationalism, at least for the time, the
bitterness it produced among many Filipinos endured well into mid-century. As
normalcy returned to the islands in 1903, the United States attempted to address
one of the long-term problems faced by the islands--land-tenure. Many large
parcels of Church-owned land that had been expropriated by the Spanish in the
sixteenth century and given to the Church to administer were offered for public
sale. However sincere the effort, few Filipinos were able to take advantage
of this opportunity. Those who attempted to purchase land were often victims
of usury and fraud at the hands of local officials more interested in graft
than in helping the peasants

5

acquire land.4 The land sale program failed to
transfer land ownership to the farmers but did allow those few Filipinos with
resources to increase the size of their holdings. This had the effect of perpetuating
the landlord-tenant relationship that had become synonymous with Philippine
agriculture. Rampant corruption in government, coupled with an unchanging socioeconomic
climate, continued under the new American administration in Manila throughout
the 1920s.

During the next few years, American concerns about the Philippines
were limited almost entirely to economic matters and establishing a date for
Philippine independence. In 1934, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 127, the
Tydings-McDuffie Act. The act, ratified in May by the Philippine Congress, promised
full Philippine independence on 4 July 1946 and established conditions under
which the islands would be governed until that time -- the Philippine Commonwealth.
The United States retained control of Philippine foreign relations, defense,
and major financial transactions but granted the Philippine president and legislature
power to administer internal affairs.5 The Tydings-McDuffie Act created
dissension within the Philippine government, for it promised independence at
the price of formalizing economic ties with Washington for the next twelve years.
Many critics in Manila, and in the growing communist and socialist parties as
well, objected strongly to the near total disregard for Philippine nationalism
that these strict controls mandated.

After the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in
1935, U.S. economic and political policy did little to alleviate the basic Philippine
problems of poverty and land-tenure.

6

Although the Philippine economy showed marked improvements before World War
II, internal distribution of wealth remained much as it always had been. Landlords
grew rich at the expense of the peasant farmer who found it increasingly difficult
to repay loans for seed or lease money made by the landlord. Confronted with
these obstacles, individual initiative was stifled, productivity remained low,
and whatever profits a farmer managed to scrape together went toward paying
his landlord.

By 1941, 80 percent of Luzon's farmers were hopelessly indebted
to their landlords with no expectations of a brighter future at all. Although
improvements had been made in education, transportation, health care and communications,
the absence of social reforms served only to raise local frustrations with their
central government. In Luzon's provinces of Balacan, Nueva Ecija, Cavite, Tarlac,
Bataan, and Laguna, few farmers owned their land. The majority were either tenants
or hired labor. In Pampanga Province, 70 percent of the farmers were tenants.6
As a result, annual income during this period hovered at only 120 pesos, about
$65. This agrarian region proved ripe for anti-government insurgencies as the
local population continued to struggle against landlords and had little faith
in the central

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government which the peasant saw as unconcerned with their
plight.

PRE-WAR DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUK

Peasant farmers, many of whom were literate by this time thanks
to American efforts to abolish mass illiteracy under Spanish rule, were demoralized
by stagnant social conditions and the failure of the United States to grant
Philippine independence after the war with Spain. They realized landlords were
taking advantage of them and began to seek outlets for their frustrations. The
farmer tilled land owned by an absentee landlord or by the Church, either of
which demanded not less than half of his crop, sometimes 70 percent, as rent
and payment for seed. Additionally, the landlord controlled almost every aspect
of his life. A story recalled by the Huk supreme commander, Luis Taruc, shares
the experiences of many Filipino farmers during the early 1920s. Taruc told
of his family moving by carabao cart from their home in San Luis, Pampanga,
to take over the farm worked by his uncle in Bataan. Although they moved with
great expectations about the land's productivity, they realized that it was
owned by the Pabalan family, landlords from San Miguel, Bulacan, who would exact
their 50-70 percent of the crop as rent and interest payment. But because the
land was more productive than that in Pampanga, they hoped to end up with a
larger share than before.7 Faced with a government content to maintain
the status quo, it was not surprising to find serious unrest on Luzon,
Panay, Negros, and Mindinao by 1920.8

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In 1920, the Third International, or Comintern, headquartered
in Moscow, met in Canton, China. The worldwide growth of interest in communism
coincided with the rising level of disaffection in the Philippines. Following
the International, an American Comintern representative, Harrison George, joined
with several Philippine socialists to form the base for the first Philippine
communist party. Together with Isabelo de los Reyes, Dominador Gomez, Crisanto
Evangelista, and Antonio Ora, he fought an influential Church and established
a small foothold for the communist cause in Luzon. In May 1924 they founded
the Kapisanang Pambansa ng mga Magbudukid sa Filippinas (KPMP), or National
Peasant's Union in Nueva Ecija Province, a stronghold of peasant unrest and
violence. Soon the National Peasant's Union spread across Luzon and into the
Philippine capital of Manila.9

The Peasant's Union exploited social conditions, the continued
colonial status of the islands, the land-tenure system, and the deteriorating
climate between landlords and peasants, to become the leader of a confederation
of labor unions, the Philippine Labor Congress. In 1927, the organization officially
associated itself with the Comintern and organized the nation's first legal
communist political party, the Worker's Party.10 Within the year,
Evangelista, as head of the Worker's Party, took advantage of his position and
visited Chou En Lai and Stalin. Upon his return to Luzon, he organized four
new socialist and communist organizations and began to plan the "class struggle"
against the Manila government.11

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On the 34th anniversary of the 1896 Katipunan Revolt, 26 August
1930, Evangelista announced the birth of the Partido Komunista ng Filipinas,
the Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP). Less than three months later,
on the 13th anniversary of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, he formally established
the PKP and proclaimed its objectives. In his address of 7 November, he set
forth five guiding principles for the Philippine communist movement: to mobilize
for complete national independence; to establish communism for the masses; to
defend the masses against capitalist exploitation; to overthrow American imperialism
in the Philippines; and to overthrow capitalism. With these guidelines and the
PKP banner that displayed the communist hammer and sickle emblem on a red background,
surrounded by the words "Communist Party of the Philippines," Evangelista set
out on his mission.12

Exactly two years after the birth of the PKP, the Philippine
Supreme Court declared it illegal and Evangelista and several of his chief lieutenants
were imprisoned. They were charged with plotting the overthrow of the government
and instigating large-scale, bloody riots in Manila. Other PKP members went
underground and began to fight against landlords on behalf of the peasants.
Although not widespread, PKP attacks unsettled central Luzon. Landlords were
murdered, farm animals slaughtered, and many fields were put to the torch. In
reaction, President Quezon instituted several minor land reform measures, including
putting a 30 percent limit on the amount of a tenant's crop that could be demanded
by the landlord. Although highly lauded at its conception, this reform was all
but ignored by landlords, courts, and the government.13

10

An unfortunate side-effect of the 1932 court decision was
a dramatic rise in prestige and size of the heretofore weak Philippine Socialist
Party (formed in April 1932 in Pampanga) and the militant Worker and Peasant's
Union (WPU). With the PKP in an outlaw status, the socialists and WPU became
the legal foci for many PKP supporters. Both organizations gained considerable
influence during the next six years as poor socio-economic conditions remained
unchanged for Luzon's tenant farmers and urban poor.14

Amidst increasing incidents of violent communist-sponsored
demonstrations in Manila in 1938, Quezon released PKP leaders Evangelista, Taruc,
and de Los Reyes when they pledged their loyalty to the government and to American
efforts to resist fascist and Japanese expansion.15 This action soon
proved less than desirable for Quezon. Almost immediately after his parole,
Evangelista assumed leadership of a united socialist front when the PKP merged
with the Socialist Party on 7 November. The new organization openly proclaimed
the communist doctrine and spread from its traditional stronghold in central
Luzon to Bataan, Zambales, and to the islands of Cebu, Panay, and Negros.

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COMMUNIST PARTY EVOLUTION BEFORE 1941

Chart 1

Evangelista's bitter opposition to Quezon and his administration
continued until 1941 when the threat of Japanese invasion brought a temporary
truce and offers from the PKP to support the Commonwealth. President Quezon,
who trusted neither Evangelista nor the CPP coalition, refused the offer.16
The stage had been set for the war with Japan that was sure to come. Evangelista
was the leader of a small but growing socialist/communist organization that
drew support from the large number of dissatisfied peasants in Luzon's heartland.
The Philippine central government distrusted the CPP coalition and despite the
growing clouds of war on the horizon, refused to negotiate any cooperative agreements
with them. The peasant remained trapped by his poor social and economic status
and perceived the Manila government as content to let this condition continue.
Now, on top of all these concerns, the threat of Japanese invasion cast an even
darker shadow over the Filipino peasant.

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Notes

1. Robert R. Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency: Economic,
Political and Military Factors, (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of
Military History, [1963]), pp. 3-9.